Terry Ellis didn’t learn about lacrosse until he was a freshman at Clayton High School outside of St. Louis when news of the racially charged Duke lacrosse case dominated headlines. An African-American woman falsely accused three white lacrosse players of rape, a story that got widespread media attention in 2006.

“Where I grew up, you play baseball and soccer, but a friend told me I should play lacrosse. He said I would be good,” said Ellis, who is African-American. “So he lent me his equipment and I fell in love with it. And here I am.”

Here he is, a standout junior defensive midfielder for the University of Denver and believed to be the first black men’s lacrosse player from St. Louis to play at the NCAA Division I level. Ellis, who was bused from north St. Louis to Clayton High School, said he hopes many young kids follow in his footsteps. He introduced lacrosse to an inner-city St. Louis boys club last summer.

“It feels good, feels like I’m doing something significant,” he said.

DU has a 52-player roster, but coach Bill Tierney and his staff have only 12.6 scholarships to give, split up however they see fit. Ellis, who substitutes whenever the Pioneers lose possession of the ball and is responsible for defending and causing turnovers, is on a full ride. He’s a big part of a team that is making its third consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals this weekend.

“Words can’t express how proud we are,” said Ellis’ mother, Sherry. “Terry knew what he wanted. He never played lacrosse until his sophomore year in high school, and he knew he wanted to play Division I.”

To improve his skills after he finished high school, Ellis attended a top prospects’ camp run by Tierney.

“When he came home from the DU camp, he said Coach Tierney told him he had potential,” Sherry Ellis recalled.

Tierney saw enough to convince him Ellis could make it at the Division I level, with hard work.

“He was very raw, and you have an African-American kid coming to the University of Denver and he’s in a lily-white sport. And he doesn’t know anybody, and now he’s gone from playing club high school lacrosse to Division I lacrosse,” Tierney said. “He kept growing and learning the game, he got better and better, and now he’s worth every dime we’ve given him.”

At 6-foot-1 and 185 pounds, Ellis is a track star with a stick, probably the Pioneers’ best athlete. Ellis has turned Tierney’s recruiting gamble into one of the biggest success stories of the Hall of Fame coach’s career.

“The whole story is bizarre,” Tierney said.

In 2009 — only three years after Ellis began playing lacrosse and just months after DU hired Tierney — Ellis attended Tierney’s Top 205 summer camp, which is one of the country’s top recruiting camps for ninth- and 10th-graders. Ellis had just graduated from Clayton High, and had played three years of club-level lacrosse.

“We’re recruiting ninth- and 10th-graders and this guy has already graduated. But when we saw him run, we said, ‘Who is this kid? Let’s go get him.’ Nobody knew about him,” Tierney said. “At first we thought he was just sharpening up his skills to go to college somewhere, and he said, ‘I’m not going anywhere. That’s why I came here.’ “

Said Ellis: “I just wanted to make a team somewhere. DU was the closest camp from St. Louis besides Notre Dame and Ohio State. I knew the old coach (Jamie Munro) had lost his job and moved on and Coach Tierney was coming in. I knew if I could impress him, I could impress a lot of coaches.”

Throwing, catching and scooping lacrosse balls from the turf in a Division I setting usually require years of dedication amid high-caliber competition. But the biggest thing preventing Ellis from joining DU as a true freshman wasn’t his talent. It was academics.

“He was a nonqualifier, but not because of grades,” Tierney said of Ellis not having all the college prep courses he needed. “His high school was not used to sending athletes out with NCAA criteria.”

So Ellis’ Division I lacrosse dream was put on hold. He attended the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2009-10, usually practicing by himself, throwing and catching a lacrosse ball against a wall. He enrolled at DU in January 2011, in time for the Pioneers’ magical trip to the Final Four in Tierney’s second year. He played in only one game as a second-year freshman.

Now Ellis and sophomore Garret Holst are DU’s two top defensive midfielders, an unsung position that Tierney views as critical to a team’s success. The defensive midfielders play in front of the three long-stick defensemen.

“The most important position on the field, I guess you could argue, is goalie, but other than that it’s the short-stick defensive midfield position, because that’s who you attack,” Tierney said. “If you ask any offensive coach, how do you start your offense? Ninety-nine percent of the time you’re dodging a short stick.”

Ellis is having a blast in an overlooked role.

“I wanted (Tierney) to be honest with me when I came here. Coach told me I probably wouldn’t play much because my skills were so raw. I saw that as an opportunity to work harder.”

And now?

“Every time I go out at practice or a game, I’m just thankful to be on the team, and the fellas accept me. And I know a lot of people back home are watching me and supporting me.”

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Tyreek Hill didn’t know what to do when he started hearing thousands of people in Arrowhead Stadium chanting his name, even as he stood all alone on the frozen turf waiting for the punt.